7. Measure Your Success

Evaluate Your Engagement, Retention, and Health Improvement

This section will help prepare you to answer the following questions:
  • Are employees who enroll sticking with the program?
  • Are you seeing the expected effect on the health and productivity of program participants?

Setting a Goal Date for Retention and Health Improvement

Consider several factors for setting goal dates for retention. First, you will want to determine what threshold you will use to measure retention in the program. We recommend using months 4, 7, or 10. Think about how soon your program will start, and if you will set your retention goals for only one cohort, or if it will be cumulative over time. Health improvement goals should allow additional time. It takes time for individuals to enroll, participate, change their behaviors, and ultimately see changes in health status. It will take even longer for your data to show this as an aggregate trend for your population. Allow plenty of time in your goal setting.

Quantifying Your Engagement, Retention, and Health Improvement Goals

If available, use data from past programs your organization has managed to better understand typical retention rates. Review your engagement and retention strategies to determine what percentage of the participants you anticipate remaining in the program. This can vary greatly depending on things like other organizational supports and well-timed incentives.

Engagement, Retention, and Health Improvement Metrics to Consider

Consider the following metrics to support your engagement and retention goals. Expand the metrics below to see how each is defined.
  • The total number of employees who have ever been engaged in the National DPP lifestyle change program, regardless of completion.
  • The total percentage of people engaged in the National DPP lifestyle change program who completed 9 or more sessions.
  • This number is calculated by dividing the number of engaged people who completed 9 or more sessions by the total number of all engaged people across all programs that offered 9 or more sessions. This number is multiplied by 100 and expressed as a percentage.
  • These data can be viewed in the aggregate across all cohorts or for each cohort separately.
  • The total percentage of people engaged in the National DPP lifestyle change program who completed 16 or more sessions.
  • This number is calculated by dividing the number of people who completed 16 or more sessions by the total number of all engaged people across all cohorts that offered 16 or more sessions. This number is multiplied by 100 and expressed as a percentage.
  • These data can be viewed in the aggregate across all cohorts or for each cohort separately.
As participants complete the program, you may want to monitor participant health changes at the total cohort (aggregate) level. These measures can be a bit harder to obtain, depending on what your program provider or third-party administrator collects and reports. Consider the following metrics to track participants’ health improvement goals.
  • The total percentage of people who reduced their A1C by 0.2% or more by participating in the National DPP lifestyle change program.
  • This number is calculated by dividing the number of people who reduced their A1C by 0.2% or more by participating in the National DPP lifestyle change program by the total number of people engaged in the National DPP lifestyle change program. This number is multiplied by 100 and expressed as a percentage.
  • The total percentage of people who lost 5% or more of their initial body weight by participating in the National DPP lifestyle change program.
  • This number is calculated by dividing the number of people who lost 5% or more of their initial body weight by participating in the National DPP lifestyle change program by the total number of people engaged in the National DPP lifestyle change program. This number is multiplied by 100 and expressed as a percentage.
  • A person’s percentage weight loss is calculated by dividing the number of pounds lost by the person’s initial body weight in pounds. This number is multiplied by 100 and expressed as a percentage.

Other Metrics to Consider

Other metrics that can help you measure the success of your National DPP lifestyle change program include:
  • Self-reported participant satisfaction.
  • Participant feedback.
  • Aggregate physical activity level data.
  • Aggregate weight loss data.
The Healm platform does not gather or track this type of information, but you may want to track it yourself separately.